Giant Bell Township oak may be one of the biggest in the state

Tom McQuade admires the red oak he discovered while marking trees to harvest on property in Bell Township on Monday, July 2, 2018. The red oak tree is estimated to be roughly 400 years old and will not be included in the harvest.

Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review

A large burl grows on a 400-year-old red oak tree in Bell Township. The burl, alone, is estimated to weigh more then 800 pounds.

Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review

A red oak tree discovered on a farm in Bell Township is estimated to be more then 400 years old. Land owner Jack Tickle intends to protect the tree rather then harvesting it.

Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review

Old nail heads are exposed in the bark of the huge red oak tree in Bell Township.

Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review

A 120-feet-tall red oak tree discovered on a farm in Bell Township towers over surrounding trees on Monday, July 2, 2018.

Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review

Land owner, Jack Tickle, 80, talks about the first time he’d seen the colossal red oak tree on his property while he was hunting as a young man in Bell Twp. Monday July 2, 2018.

Heavy machinery is used by workers as they pruned the roots, built a burlap, plywood and steel-pipe structure to contain the rootball so they can move the roughly 100-foot sequoia tree in Boise, Idaho, Thursday, June 22, 2017. The sequoia tree sent more than a century ago by naturalist John Muir to Idaho and planted in a Boise medical doctor's yard has become an obstacle to progress. So the 98-foot (30-meter) sequoia planted in 1912 and that's in the way of a Boise hospital's expansion is being uprooted and moved about a block to city property this weekend.

A roughly 100-foot sequoia tree is viewed looking upward from the base of the trunk in Boise, Idaho, Friday, June 23, 2017. The sequoia tree sent more than a century ago by naturalist John Muir to Idaho and planted in a Boise medical doctor's yard has become an obstacle to progress. So the sequoia planted in 1912 and that's in the way of a Boise hospital's expansion is being uprooted and moved about a block to city property this weekend.

A roughly 100-foot sequoia tree sits on a platform made of steel pipe, chains, burlap, wood and other reinforcements as workers prepare to move it to a new location about a block away in Boise, Idaho Friday, June 23, 2017. Workers in Idaho are preparing to inflate rolling tubes beneath a massive sequoia that grew from a seed sent by naturalist John Muir. The more than century-old tree is in the final throes Friday of a complex effort to uproot it from the path of a Boise hospital's expansion and move it two blocks away to city property. If all goes according to plan, it will arrive at its new home Sunday.

TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.

For a forester in Pennsylvania, finding a red oak tree with a circumference of about 26 feet and a height of 120 feet is about as likely as seeing Bigfoot.

But a giant does exist just beyond the fields of a Bell Township farm, rivaling some of the largest red oaks in the state, according to preliminary measurements. And it probably has been there for 400 years.

Tom McQuaide of Torrance, a forester with Pennsylvania Forest Management, is in the process of submitting the tree’s measurements for inclusion in the Champion Trees of Pennsylvania, a registry of the state’s largest trees measured by several factors, including height and girth.

The largest red oak in the state is in Delaware County. It has an 18-foot circumference, smaller than the Bell Township specimen’s, but it is 145 feet tall, according to the Champion Trees website.

“Let’s just say, 100 years ago, there wasn’t equipment in the state to cut down this tree — it was too big to handle,” said McQuaide, a burly man who looks diminutive next to the base of the red oak, which could hide half a dozen men McQuaide’s size.

Not that he is looking to cut it down.

McQuaide, who was hired to cut select trees, and the property owner agreed they want it to remain standing.

They will forgo an estimated 5,000 board-feet of lumber worth thousands of dollars to preserve the tree. By comparison, the typical “large” red oak would yield about 1,000 board-feet of lumber.

“Let it stand as a monument,” said McQuaide and the owner, Jack Tickle.

The tree’s longevity is attributable to good genetics, an agreeable environment and adaptability, according to foresters.

“It’s in a perfect location in a hollow protected from wind and lightning strikes,” McQuaide noted.

And it was tucked away just outside the farm fields, likely shielding it from the axe.

Often, large oak trees in Southwestern Pennsylvania have iconic large crowns and are found alone in the middle of a field or along a country road where they are “allowed to be the local queen of the landscape,” said Charles Bier, senior director of conservation science at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

“It’s more unusual for a tree to grow to a large size in the forest like this,” he said.

“We also have fewer trees to reach that size because there are less of them due to urban and suburban sprawl.”

Because the tree has been hiding in the woods, Tickle only discovered it when he was a young teen out hunting, about 65 years ago.

“It’s been hanging in there for a long time now,” said Tickle, 80, who still operates the 103-acre farm that his father bought in 1942.

“I like to just go and look at that tree,” he said.

The red oak is indeed mighty in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, with a wide distribution range from the Canadian border to the southern United States.

The tree is common, dominant and known for its fast growth, hardiness and resiliency, according to Ryan Reed, an environmental education specialist with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry.

“If you are going to find a granddaddy tree, a champion, it’s going to be a red oak,” he said.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.